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Good Morning Arkansas has been good indeed for Sinclair’s KATV — so good that the Little Rock, Ark., ABC affiliate will be expanding the news, talk and lifestyle format with a live and local 3 p.m. show. Good Afternoon Arkansas, the first afternoon show of its kind in the market, will make its debut on Sept. 4.

Sinclair’s Little Rock, Ark. ABC affiliate KATV says it’s the first station in Arkansas to use a drone for news coverage. The drone, named SKY 7, is a DJI Inspire 1 Pro quadcopter piloted by Brian Emfinger and Barry Deere from KATV. The drone has a Zenmuse X5 gimbal and HD zoom camera that can broadcast live.

Despite the FAA’s regulations prohibiting the use of drones by news outlets, the Little Rock, Ark., ABC affiliate says it’s not breaking any rules because the station doesn’t own the drone that’s being used to take the video it’s aired. “This video is being used to advance the story and advance public information,” says News Director Nick Gentry.

In covering tornados over the past week, broadcasters supplemented their more traditional on-air, real-time forecasting and weather radar images with warnings on social media sites, station websites and even robotic telephone calls. Doug Heady, chief meteorologist at KOAM Pittsburg, Kan., says: “I really don’t consider us nowadays to be TV meteorologists; we are kind of multimedia meteorologists.”

Special Reports

Nexstar Media Group comes out on top of TVNewsCheck-BIA Advisory Services’ annual list of the Top 30 groups ranked by revenue thanks to the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger, with Nexstar picking Read More